Your competitors have already done the work of attracting your target audience. Their followers are pre-qualified prospects for your offer. The workflow for systematically targeting competitor audiences is one of the highest-ROI moves in Instagram outreach.
Not your direct competitors only — include adjacent brands your target audience also follows. A fitness coach should target followers of: other fitness coaches, nutrition coaches, healthy-recipe creators, fitness equipment brands, gym franchises. Broader competitor set = larger target pool. List 5-10 accounts minimum.
Viari can extract the follower list from any public Instagram account. For competitors with 10K-500K followers, this gives you thousands of pre-qualified prospects. Some accounts may have their follower list hidden; those require engagement-based targeting instead (engaging with their post commenters, etc.).
Users who follow 3+ of your competitors are your hottest prospects (high category interest). Users who follow 1 competitor are warm. Viari's target list manager dedupes and scores automatically. Focus early outreach on the hot list.
First touch: engagement campaign (like a few posts, view their Stories) to appear in their notifications. Wait 5-7 days. Second touch: DM. This warm-up pattern improves DM reply rates by 30-50% compared to cold DMs because the recipient has seen your account before.
Your DM shouldn't trash the competitor. It should position you as complementary or slightly different. 'I noticed you follow [competitor] — we have a similar angle but focus specifically on [your unique angle]. Curious what drew you to them?' This gets replies because it invites conversation about their preferences.
Some competitor audiences convert better than others for you. Track replies and closes per competitor source. Double down on the best-performing competitor audience. Viari's tagging system lets you label each DM target with the competitor source, so analytics are automatic.
Competitor follower lists grow. Every 90 days, pull new target lists and filter against previously-contacted users. This ensures you're always reaching fresh prospects without re-pestering ones who've already passed on your offer.
Competitor follower targeting works because your competitor's marketing has already qualified these users as interested in your category. You're not convincing them to care about your niche — they already do.